Saying Goodbye to Ed Glenn

With the sale of the company to W.R. Berkley, you’ll be leaving us after almost 20 years. There are folks at CGH Insurance that have been around since the beginning, but others haven’t been around for nearly as long who don’t really know the history or how you got involved. We thought before saying goodbye, you could tell us a little bit about your role and about you, too.

When did you get started working in insurance?
Ed Glenn: I trace that back to when I entered graduate school at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. I started graduate school there in fall of 1969 after serving 3 years in the Navy. As things happen, I was offered the chance to teach at Wharton after a professor left the school to become Pennsylvania’s Insurance Commissioner. His leaving had left the school shorthanded, so they asked me to teach. After a few years of teaching, I decided the academic world and teaching weren’t for me. I left Wharton and worked with the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) helping to prepare course materials for the CPCU exams. Then, I moved south in 1979. (I was originally from Alabama, and I graduated from the University of Alabama.) I have been in the agency and insurance business ever since.

How did you first become involved with American Mining Insurance Company?
E.G.: That goes back to 1983-84 when I hired Chan Cox to work with us in the Independent Agency business after he came back to Birmingham from working with GenRe in Chicago. Chan had the idea that a Managing General Agency (MGA) in the coal business would be a business worth pursuing. So we started Mining Insurance Markets in 1985. Our experience with that led us to believe that we needed our own insurance company and that came to pass in early 1989 when Dom, Chan and I, with financial backing from the Drummond CGH Trust, started American Mining Insurance Company and CGH Insurance Group.

How has the industry changed since you started?
E.G.: It has gone through so many changes, mergers and acquisitions that you’d never expect. USF&G, AETNA and many others just aren’t in the landscape anymore. Companies have become more specialized in what they do and how they do it. In the past, many insurance companies were generalists. The big companies were interested in writing all types of insurance. Now, most companies think first of what they want to offer, to whom and how they’ll package it. If you have a need that is outside the box, you are out of their line of fire and they aren’t interested.

AMIC was a niche operation from the beginning, specializing in an area (mining) where there weren’t many players. We’ve stayed true to that objective ever since. We’ve grown from a company operating in one state with literally no business to a company operating in 18 states with offices in four states. And, of course, technology has really enabled us to be more efficient in how we work and been a real advantage to us as we have grown.

What do you plan to do now?
E.G.: I’m going to continue to work in the agency business, but maybe not quite as hard as in the past. My son joined me in the business about 4 years ago and I’m just having fun watching and helping. I also hope to spend a little more time out in the country. We have a farm in West Alabama and I really enjoy spending time working on the property. I’ll spend a little more time watching trees grow.